Political Mediation as a Tool of Conflict Resolution: Qatar as a Case Study

This paper explores the notion of political mediation as a tool for conflict resolution, focusing particularly on the case of Qatar. In recent years, political mediation has been as a popular alternative to armed conflicts and Qatar has proven itself to be an active mediator, seeking opportunities to help conflicting parties come to an agreement. The research question can be formulated in the following manner: What factors contribute to the success of Qatar's mediation and why it is not always successful in resolving the conflict? The literature review shows that Qatar enjoys a favorable combination of wealth, prosperity, and leadership stability that it uses to promote its role as an active mediator. The methodology that was used during the research relies on the use of three cases which involved Qatar: mediation in Lebanon, Sudan, and Yemen. Overall, the research is qualitative. It was found that in each of these cases, the country in question used its resources extremely efficiently in order to achieve mediation, but it was not successful in resolving the situation. Thus, in Lebanon, initially the negotiations that lead to the election of the new president were seen as a diplomatic victory, but the current state of affairs shows that it did not change much in the country, even though it prevented possible civil war. In the case of Sudan, Qatar was able to facilitate talks between the government and the rebel groups, but neither of them was able to agree on lasting peace. Finally, in the case of Yemen, Qatar is responsible for drafting two peace agreements, but the first has been broken and the second is likely to break as well. All this leads to the situation when Qatari mediation efforts are successful, yet they do not have a long-lasting effect.